Gibson launches self-tuning guitar

The day when concerts have to stop for instruments to be retuned could be coming to an end, thanks to guitar manufacturer Gibson.

It has launched the world's first self-tuning guitar, which was demonstrated in London today by Alarm guitarists Mike Peters and Dave Sharp.

The £1400 Gibson Robot Les Paul has two microprocessors, one in the body near the bridge and the other at the other end of the fretboard, buried among the machine heads used for tuning the strings.

The heads themselves pack tiny servomotors that can tighten up or loosen strings to a choice a several different tunings – and the system can remember others if you wish.

To tune the guitar you choose your tuning using a knob near the bridge and brush the strings. One microprocessor analyses the output of the guitar's standard twin Humbacker pickups to establish the current tuning, and sends the information to the second processor controlling the heads. The data is transferred through the strings, so no wires pass through the neck.

The system needs to calibrate itself to each new string, so that it knows roughly how much a head needs to turn to get the right pitch. This saves battery power by minimising trial and error but it led to an embarrassing moment for guitar writer Robbie Gladwell when he was explaining the new model at today's launch and could not get the retuning to work.

It turned out that someone had changed a string on the guitar and had not recalibrated it.

Tuning is said to be more accurate that most electronic tuners. Peters said it would save a lot of time in recording studios where instruments can go out of tune between takes, or even between verses of a song.

The self-tuning guitar goes on sale officially on December 7 but Gibson says it has already sold out. A spokeman said a kit would probably become available to retrofit the self-tuning to other models.

Gladwell said: "I reckon most manufacturers will have something like thuis on offer by the end of next year."

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